Iran to Renovate Sugarcane Factories in Cuba
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iran has held talks with Cuba to renovate and optimize 160 sugarcane factories in the Latin American nation, an official said.
Addressing Iran-Cuba Business Forum, held in Tehran, the CEO of the Iranian Small Industries and Industrial Parks Organization said feasibility studies have started in the lucrative Cuban market and the results will soon be available to the Iranian economic enterprises that are interested to cooperate with the Latin American country.
Farshad Moqimi noted that after the 39th edition of the Havana International Fair (FIHAV) in November 2023, many Cuban delegations visited Iran and held talks on the renovation and optimization of 160 sugarcane factories in Cuba.
Consultations are also underway on the export of agricultural products, fertilizers and pesticides to Cuba, he added, Mehr reported.
From the moment Spanish colonists first planted cane in Cuba in the 16th century, sugar has been etched into the Latin American island’s soul.
But for decades, the sugarcane industry in Cuba has been in decline. While the island regularly produced more than 7 million tonnes in the 1980s, the Cuban sugar output stood at only 480,000 tonnes in 2022 under the pressure of the US sanctions.
After the global price of sugar fell throughout the 1990s, former Cuban President Fidel Castro in 2002 announced plans to close about half of the island’s 156 mills. More were dismantled in the years that followed, slowly turning into ruins.
In the last six years alone, sugar production has fallen from more than 1.5 million tonnes a year to less than half a million tonnes, amid tougher sanctions on Cuba imposed by the administration of former US President Donald Trump and kept in place by current President Joe Biden.